1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to text-to-speech applications and, more particularly, to apparatuses and methods for phonetically screening predetermined character strings.
2. Description of the Background
Some advanced telecommunications services provide for the audible enunciation to the called party of the name of the calling party. For example, according to a talking call waiting (TCW) service, if the called party receives an incoming call when it is already participating in another call, the called party may press a key on the keypad of the telephone to receive an audible enunciation of the subscriber name associated with the calling party. In addition, according to an audio calling name (ACN) service, the called party is provided an audible enunciation of the subscriber name associated with the calling party for an incoming call. The called party may then be played a message prompting the called party to, for example, either accept the incoming call, reject the call, or forward it to a voice messaging system.
With either of these exemplary telecommunications services, or any other similar service, because of data storage limitations, the subscriber name of the calling party is typically truncated to approximately fifteen characters, although the billing name associated with the calling party may be as great as fifty characters or more. Consequently, in some instances the truncated form of the calling party's name may be unacceptable in, for example, an etiquette sense, for phonetic enunciation to the called party.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a manner in which certain predetermined character strings, which are unacceptable for phonetic enunciation, may be replaced with more appropriate character strings.